You can now book workout classes directly from Google
The search engine paired up Mindbody, a cloud-based software system for the wellness services industry, to allow users to book and pay for workout classes directly from their site.
"If you wanted to understand scheduling or pricing, if there's room in the 6 p.m. class, you would separately click through a lot of websites. And that's the friction that we are removing with this integration," said Mindbody CEO Rick Stollmeyer in an interview with Business Insider.
In other words, previously if a user Googled, "yoga classes at 6 p.m. in New York" they would have to go to multiple websites to figure would which classes have availabilities when. With this new partnership, users will have a list of available classes and the ability to book them all on the Google Reserve page.
"We're always working on new, better way to provide helpful information to our users," Google said in a statement. "As part of these ongoing efforts we're testing out the ability for people to book fitness classes directly from Google Maps, Search, and a standalone website."
The service officially launched in the first week of January, and it is only available in San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York for now. The team at Mindbody says it's hoping to expand the number of studios available through Google Reserve in the next several weeks.